Despite significant advances in diagnosis and therapy, neurologic diseases remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Neurologic diseases are common and costly. According to a recent estimate, the annual cost for treating neurologic diseases in the United States exceeds 600 billion dollars. Thus, there is a strong incentive to identify new treatments for neurologic diseases.
Because the outcome of treatment depends on a proper diagnosis, it is important to have proper tests to diagnose neurologic diseases and to monitor the treatment of those diseases. A proper diagnosis permits a physician to institute proper and timely therapy. Proper monitoring of treatment allows the physician to decide on the course of treatment and to advise patients and their families about the expected disease course. Thus, there is also a strong incentive to identify new improved tests and approaches to diagnose and to evaluate treatments of neurologic diseases.
Gelsolin, first discovered as an intracellular actin-binding protein involved in cell motility (Yin, H. L. & Stossel, T. P. (1979) Nature 281, 583-6), has been recently implicated in a number of diseases. While the true function of plasma gelsolin is not known, clinical and animal studies have shown that depletion of plasma gelsolin by injury and inflammation is associated with adverse outcomes. The proposed mechanism of gelsolin depletion is that it binds abundant actin in cells exposed by tissue breakdown. More recently, gelsolin was found to bind bioactive inflammatory mediators, lysophosphatidic acid, diadenosine phosphate, Aβ peptide (a peptide implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease), platelet-activating factor and possibly others.